The Normanic Vault

Otaku Collection Haul for November 2023

Welcome to the Otaku Collection haul for the month of November 2023. This update features 21 anime releases, 3 manga volumes, 1 artbook, 11 physical video game, 5 digital video games and 17 live-action Asian Cinema releases.

For this month’s batch concludes the final remaining Rightstuf orders (including more Aniplex), a whole bunch of Asian films that should have been picked up over the years, and even more video games to play.

Battle Creek Brawl, Magic Crystal & The Medallion

Our first items for this month’s haul comes from an order I made with 88 Films that came rather last minute due to release dates shifting numerous times for their line-up. Normally I would go with 88 Films but I decided to stick with Terracotta for the time being. This would have arrived in October but one of the titles was delayed, but this order still arrived at least one week early.

Starting with Robert Clouse’s 1980 film Battle Creek Brawl (殺手壕), also known as The Big Brawl, which is known for being one of the first films that Jackie Chan had attempted to market towards the international audience whilst working with Golden Harvest. This is also a notable release because it’s the second of four films that 88 Films re-released after its previous Blu-ray back in early 2019. Here we have a 2K restoration and improved authoring to match the same quality of the previous 88 Asia titles the distributor has released, and it’s a deluxe collector’s edition with more physical content.

Next we have Wong Jing’s 1986 film Magic Crystal (魔翡翠), which is another sci-fi fantasy Hong Kong flick which stars a variety of actors including Andy Lau and Cynthia Rothrock, both in one of their earliest roles in their acting career which is really interesting. This is packaged in 88’s current format for their regular non-deluxe releases for their 88 Asia range which involves a slim Blu-ray case (like the US releases) and a poster.

And last but not least we have Gordon Chan’s 2003 film The Medallion (飛龍再生/免死金牌), and it’s another one of Jackie Chan’s English speaking roles. Now this one is notable on the licensing side of things because similarly with Snake in the Eagle Shadow, this one will only be available for a short time period of around a few more months, so if you are interested in picking this one up I strongly suggest you buy it sooner to play it safe.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R & Pac-Man World Re-Pac

Before November, online retailer The Game Collection ran a half-term sale which included two Bandai Namco remasters/remakes that I had been interested in picking up for a while but wanted to wait for the right opportunity.

The first is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R, a remaster of the rather rare 2013 PlayStation 3 game that was pretty good for what it does for a fighting title. The characters featured cover Parts 1-7 and the main lead of Part 8, but this remaster also includes additional characters on disc and via DLC to expand the roster which is a nice addition.

Next we have Pac-Man World Re-Pac, a remaster/remake of the classic 1999 PlayStation game developed by Namco’s North American team (i.e. a Western developer handling a Japanese IP). This is a game that has had my interest for a very long time now and it’s cool to see it resurface in the same fashion that Klonoa had with 4K 60fps performance.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R

Alongside the Bandai Namco games was another game that I placed with the same order, but was shipped separately due to delays in shipping. The game was Star Ocean: The Second Story R, a remake of the 1998 PlayStation game by tri-Ace and Enix.

The second game in the franchise was already remade for the PSP previously under the name Star Ocean: Second Evolution but when that received the remastered treatment a few years back (under the name Second Evolution R), only Japan & Asia received it. So instead of us receiving the PSP remaster like First Departure, Square Enix decided to instead utilise HD-2D and remake the original PS1 version.

Reviews for this game were receiving praise which is great and I have heard its the best Star Ocean game in the franchise. Another interesting thing about this remake is that you do have the option to switch between audio and art styles between the PS1 original, PSP Second Evolution and Second Story R versions. This game was also on offer on TGC as part of the £10 Reward Points.

From Ants to Zombies: Six Decades of Video Game Horror

Keeping the trend going for Bitmap Books and their focus on specific video game genres, their next book was recently released and I placed my order as soon as it was made available. From Ants to Zombies: Six Decades of Video Game Horror compiles various games centred around horror or has themes of scariness throughout video game history. It’s a pretty great book as it delves into different types whether its space, bugs, gothic or retro focused.

The book does include games that while horror isn’t the genre focus it does have a theme, like Darkstalkers and Ghouls n Goblins, but it does include Biohazard, D, Dino Crisis, DOOM 3, Enemy Zero, Fatal Frame, House of the Dead, Prey (reboot), Silent Hill, White Day and more.

Farewell to Space Irresponsible Captain Rightstuf Haul Part 2

And so we have reached the final remaining packages from Rightstuf. This was split across three parts as a whole due to various factors. Part 1 arrived in October whilst Parts 2 & 3 arrived in November.

To recap, I made five orders during the final two weeks of the Rightstuf farewell sale. Batch #1 arrived first to Stackry, Batch #2 arrived afterwards which is the one I sent out first, Batches #3 & #4 were merged together by Rightstuf, and Batch #5 was shipped much later due to their large number of orders. Batch #1 was supposed to have been consolidated with Batch #3 but due to the merging and that specific package being in limbo due to USPS, I decided to send out Batch #1 on its own.

Part 2 of the haul is pretty much focused on Batch #1 which consists of Crunchyroll releases (with some originating from Funimation). We have three fantasy (non-isekai) anime shows and two isekai shows. I’ve watched all except for one during the simulcast.

The Duke of Death and His Maid Season 1
Animated by J.C.Staff in 2021, directed by Yoshinobu Yamakawa and based on a manga. This is one of the more surprising anime shows out there because its concept holds up pretty well, especially with the CG animation done by the same folks who adapted Hi-Score Girl. Happy there’s a third season in the works as I’ve watched both seasons during simulcast thus far. Crunchyroll released the Blu-ray in July 2022.

The Genius Prince’s Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt
Animated by Yokohama Animation Lab in 2022, directed by Masato Tamagawa and based on a light novel. I was rather entertained by this series, and I know the main protagonist can be a bit of a dick at times but as the episodes went by I found him more likeable. Also has a fun selection of characters throughout. Crunchyroll released the Blu-ray in January 2023.

The Heike Story
Animated by Science SARU in 2021, directed by Naoko Yamada and based on a classic tale. This one I didn’t watch during the simulcast and given the director and studio I have heard positive buzz about it so I figured I may as well pick it up sooner than later. Crunchyroll released the Blu-ray in November 2022.

Skeleton Knight in Another World
Animated by Studio Kai in 2022, directed by Katsumi Ono and based on a light novel. Similar to Goblin Slayer folks got put off by some moments in the first episode, but if you get past that the rest of the series is a lot of fun. Skeleton dude is pretty chill and he gets Ponta-kun tagging along who’s a fun animal companion. Also has a dark elf which is a rarity these days. The show also has a pretty great opening song which was done by a YouTube artist who sang cover songs. Crunchyroll released the Blu-ray in June 2023.

Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs Season 1
Animated by ENGI in 2022, directed by Kazuya Miura & Shin’ichi Fukumoto and based on a light novel. Despite the character designs being completely different to the novels, this was also very entertaining and I love the direction they have gone with. This one also has a banger opening song. Crunchyroll released the Blu-ray in May 2023.

Eureka Entertainment Haul

Not long after payday, I realised that a specific number of Eureka Entertainment titles were going out of print based on the website labelling them as ‘discontinued’. Now after I received these, some of them did update to say it was available again, but regardless I had been meaning to buy these films for years, so it was about time I got it sorted now. The haul was split between online retailers Deff and Terracotta.

The films that I picked up from Deff were Hou Hsiao-hsien’s 1987 film Daughter of the Nile (尼羅河女兒), Kôji Fukada’s 2016 film Harmonium (淵に立つ), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2015 film Journey to the Shore (岸辺の旅), Naomi Kawase’s 2007 film The Mourning Forest (殯の森) and also her 2015 film Sweet Bean (あん).

And the films that I picked up from Terracotta were Yuen Woo-ping’s 1978 film Drunken Master (醉拳) and Sion Sono’s 2015 film Tag (リアル鬼ごっこ). Tag I have watched previously a few years back via Amazon Prime and it’s a really good film.

With the exception of Tag, the rest of the films are all part of Eureka’s Masters of Cinema range which includes a booklet. Both The Mourning Forest and Tag are currently the ones that are listed as discontinued whilst the others are still available in print, but they were released in 2016 & 2017 so it’s around the time of which licenses are expected to expire.

Ascendance of a Bookworm & Burn the Witch

Now we have another batch of Anime Limited releases, which has been quite a while since the previous batch was around September time.

One of which is Ascendance of a Bookworm Seasons 1 & 2 which was supposed to have been released back in March and was also one of the 11 early birds available during the 12 Days of Christmas 2022 sale, so in a sense it has taken 11 months to finally release the set. It’s a nice package, but it is disappointing that Anime Limited re-used the Sentai discs because it means the subtitles weren’t updated to be consistent with the light novel translation and terminology.

The other is Burn the Witch, which is also a spin-off to the BLEACH franchise. I’m very intrigued to see how this fares because its not from the same animation studio as BLEACH but rather by Studio Colorido known for their film Penguin Highway. This is a film, but it was split into three episodes for international streaming on Crunchyroll, but the release (which re-uses the Viz Media disc) does include both versions.

Heroes & Villains: Three Films Starring Jet Li & Royal Tramp Collection

Much like 88 Films, I have also pre-ordered the latest titles from Eureka Entertainment and these two are the titles that were part of the November pre-order bundle offer, but it’s an intriguing batch as we have five films across two releases.

Heroes and Villains: Three Films starring Jet Li is a three film compilation that includes Corey Yuen’s 1995 film My Father is a Hero (给爸爸的信), also known as The Enforcer in the UK, Ching Siu-tung’s 1996 film Dr. Wai in “The Scripture with No Words” (冒險王), and Stephen Tung’s 1998 film Hitman (殺手之王). What I like about this release is that it’s focusing more on Jet Li’s earlier films from the Hong Kong era before he was more known with his features in various Hollywood films/

I also find it random that it’s only happening very recently that Jet Li’s earlier films just suddenly become available for home video in the UK, so I wonder if Fortune Star decided to let them out of the vault or something happened to spark interest. Eureka did keep The Enforcer name instead of the official one, but my guess is because they want to avoid paying the BBFC for the original title.

Also arrived is The Royal Tramp Collection which features Wong Jing’s 1992 films Royal Tramp (鹿鼎記) and Royal Tramp 2 (鹿鼎記2神龍教). Not much to say here other than we have more Stephen Chow films getting released, so it’s good to see more of his films also making their UK Blu-ray appearances.

Both of these collections are part of the Eureka Classics range which includes a slipcase and booklet for their first-print runs.

Farewell to Space Irresponsible Captain Rightstuf Haul Part 3

And then we have finally made it to the last Rightstuf haul ever. It’s a sad time but we go out with a bang because it’s a massive batch. To recap, this covers Batches #3, #4 & #5 because Rightstuf consolidated Batch #3 & #4 together and there was enough room to consolidate with Batch #5 as well.

Batch #3 consists of the four remaining Crunchyroll releases (with some originating from Funimation) that I ordered from this whole process, and then Batches #4 & #5 are all Aniplex related. The package that contained Batches #3 & #4 was delayed by weeks because USPS sent the package into the wrong direction and was untraceable for a long time, which made me worried that it was lost. Fortunately it made progress but it definitely needed extra packaging protection because the photos that Stackry provided seemed to imply it probably wouldn’t have survived further travel.

While I have used Stackry and their Global Mail Direct shipping service, due to the weight of the package, it was delivered to the UK via Yun Express and Royal Mail rather than Evri so to say that this package went through hell sums it up. Miraculously they did arrive and they were safe and secured with no major damage (some small dents on a few titles).

Starting off with the Crunchyroll/Funimation titles. I have watched two of these during the simulcast, whilst the other two are blind-buys but I’ve been interested in owning them for a while.

Arte
Animated by Seven Arcs in 2020, directed by Takayuki Hamana and based on a manga. I’ve been aware of this series for a while and its setting sparked my interest so I decided to add it to the haul. Sadly I ended up with the second print run which means no slipcase but fortunately there’s no unique artwork between the slipcase and Amaray so nothing has been lost technically. Crunchyroll released the Blu-ray in July 2021.

Love After World Domination
Animated by Project No.9 in 2022, directed by Kazuya Iwata and based on a manga. A romance comedy show that I was going to watch during the simulcast but work and the backlog got in the way. This does have a UK release but I want to own it with the slipcase (and the other reason being that I dislike the current status of the UK branch as it is). Crunchyroll released the Blu-ray in February 2023.

Sabikui Bisco
Animated by OZ in 2022, directed by Atsushi Itagaki and based on a light novel. This series was really fun to watch and not only were the cast and character designs pretty cool but the soundtrack slaps. A second season was also greenlit which is neat. Crunchyroll released the Blu-ray in January 2023.

Wave, Listen to Me!
Animated by Sunrise in 2020, directed by Tatsuma Minamikawa and based on a manga. This slice of life radio show series is by the creator of Blade of the Immortal, and it’s surprisingly good to watch. Love the concept and the main lead is entertaining. There was even a Matrix reference at one point. Crunchyroll released the Blu-ray in June 2021.

I still plan to get more Funimation and Crunchyroll but we’ll see how it goes over time.

Meanwhile we have Aniplex of America from Batch #4 & #5. Now the last time I bought anything Aniplex related was two years ago when I ordered two titles from Rightstuf’s Black Friday sale and a forum sale for a few other titles. Since it’s been a long while and the fact that the discount code also worked on the distributor’s titles (which is a rarity by the way) I used this opportunity to get as many as I could, though it was expensive I did save money also.

As you can guess it’s mostly Fate.

Fate/Grand Order Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia Box Sets I & II
Animated by CloverWorks in 2019, directed by Toshifumi Akai and based on the 7th Singularity arc in the Fate/Grand Order gacha game. It’s Fate but this time they started adapting an arc that’s way far into the gacha, but they did make sure anime-only viewers can jump in. Aniplex of America released Box Set I in March 2021 and Box Set II in June 2021.

Fate/Grand Order Divine Realm of the Round Table: Camelot Wandering;Agateram & Paladin;Agateram
Animated by Signal.MD and Production I.G. in 2020 & 2021, directed by Kei Suezawa & Kazuto Arai, and based on the 6th Singularity arc in the Fate/Grand Order gacha game. It’s Fate but this time they adapted another late arc into two films and by two different studios. Music sounds dope, but will admit this is one of the best Aniplex packages out there. Aniplex of America released Wandering;Agateram in December 2021 and Paladin;Agateram in May 2022.

Fate/Grand Order Final Singularity – Grand Temple of Time: Solomon
Animated by CloverWorks in 2021, directed by Toshifumi Akai and based on the 8th & Final Singularity arc in the Fate/Grand Order gacha game. It’s Fate but this time they started going into full Avengers mode which means we get UMU Nero and Jeanne D’Arc joining the fight which is neat. Prepare to get confused. Aniplex of America released the film in July 2022.

Fate/Grand Carnival
Animated by Lerche in 2021, and directed by Seiji Kishi. It’s Fate but this time they brought back Carnival Phantasm and switched it up to be focused on the Fate/Grand Order cast and it is only four short episodes. Aniplex of America released the series in October 2022.

Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song-
Animated by WIT Studio in 2020, directed by Shinpei Ezaki, and created by Tappei Nagatsuki & Eiji Umehara. Surprisingly I skipped out on this series when it aired and figured now was the right time to jump in and pick it up. Aniplex of America released the series in September 2022.

And that concludes the Rightstuf haul and even the retailer itself. I will eventually try out the Crunchyroll store but it is a shame that they went for an inferior store over the most popular one. It is rather fortunate for me that I did decide to utilise forwarding services but at the same time annoying that I once again miss out on using it for the Rightstuf holiday sales etc.

Hula Fulla Dance

Another new Anime Limited release arrives and it’s from Bandai Namco Pictures (the same studio behind Iruma-kun) with Aniplex for Hula Fulla Dance. This is a light-hearted film focused on hula dancing which you don’t see that often in anime, and even though the film is relatively new it’s still niche given the lack of exposure in the marketing internationally (Crunchyroll does have the rights but only made it available for streaming). Always good to get niche films on Blu-ray and with a collector’s package.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable Vol. 7-9

After a long few weeks of dealing with work I finally had time off and took the opportunity to go to town. Before I went to the cinema I visited the Travelling Man store to acquire the last three remaining volumes that I needed for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable which are volumes 7, 8 & 9. This now completes Part 4 of the story, and that means Golden Wind will be picked up next at some point.

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

When I came back from town, a package arrived in the post from Bazaar Bazaar which was Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name for the PlayStation 5. This is the Asian English version as SEGA decided to release it digitally only for the western audiences. The infamous English dub is not on the disc as it’s going to be distributed via a patch-update. My copy also came with 6 postcards which is probably a pre-order bonus.

Evangelion: 3.0+1.11 Thrice Upon a Time

After many years, Evangelion: 3.0+1.11 Thrice Upon a Time was finally released in Japan and this year Anime Limited was able to release the film for home video with a 4K Ultra HD release. To recap, this is the fourth & final film in the Rebuild of Evangelion series and the English dub was not handled by Funimation (Crunchyroll) this time around. It’s a rather nice deluxe set and there’s tons of on-disc content like the 90s series did. Also to note, the film isn’t presented in HDR, just like the Japanese release.

Forspoken

Black Friday sales had begun and one game that I was curious about but didn’t want to spend that much on was on a massive discount deal for £9.99, and that was Forspoken on PlayStation 5 from Square Enix. I didn’t realise until it was released that it was developed by the same team behind Final Fantasy XV as the marketing implied it was a western developed title (and technically the writing is done by an international team and the game is mainly aimed for a western audience to be fair).

The game did receive a lot of flack at launch and underperformed, but I heard the latest patches did improve the performance which is neat. Sure the game didn’t review well but I can’t complain about the price.

Last Hero in China & The Long Arm of the Law

If you thought the 88 Films package from the start of the month was enough, the November pre-order titles also turned up weeks later. Now I ordered these at the last second due to delays that had affected one of them but as soon as I saw the distributor posting photos of the stock I finally got it sorted.

Here we have Wong Jing’s Last Hero in China (黃飛鴻之鐵雞鬥蜈蚣) and Johnny Mak & Michael Mak’s The Long Arm of the Law Saga I & II (省港旗兵 & 省港旗兵續集), the latter of which is part of their deluxe collector’s edition range which includes a booklet and poster. They have been using the thin Blu-ray cases for their recent releases and it’s good to see booklets still fit in these.

88 Films have said they will look into The Long Arm of the Law Saga III & IV if the sales are good for the first two films which is neat to see.

Demon’s Tilt & River City Girls Zero

If you have been following my hauls since around August time, you may recall that I had been picking up a whole bunch of Limited Run Games because Canadian retailer VideoGamesPlus started a partnership with them which includes stocking their titles. And since then they were able to receive stock for a whole bunch of sold out titles and it’s thanks to them that I was able to acquire almost all of the Nintendo Switch LRG games that I was interested in, with the exceptions being The House in Fata Morgana and the first two Turok games as those were super long gone years ago.

This was probably supposed to have been done back in October but as soon as I had checked their stock status in their online store, I made the decision to sort it out now. The first is River City Girls Zero, a prequel to the River City Girls series by WayForward but is actually an older classic Japan-only Super Famicom game called Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-tachi no Banka, which is the fourth Kunio-kun game in the franchise. This is one that was ported to modern platforms thanks to ModernVintageGamer’s Carbon Engine.

The other game that I picked up is not part of their numbered range, called Demon’s Tilt. This is a pinball game inspired by the classic Crush Pinball games that were released on Turbografx (PC Engine) back in the day and I have played a bit of it here and there when it arrived and it’s really cool. It does feel a bit simplistic but it work well for the Switch so I made the right choice here.

My Dress-Up Darling

One of the more popular and recent anime series as of late was My Dress-Up Darling and I finally picked up the limited edition. In a weird move, Crunchyroll decided not to bring the limited edition over to the UK and given the series’ popularity I decided to get this ordered sooner than later.

However, I didn’t pre-order this release from Rightstuf as I wasn’t sure what else to include with it due to the partial shipping that they do, and it was a very sudden decision for me to just go ahead with the risky approach of using Amazon UK because of their packaging. It was pretty much at full price (though it has VAT included and shipping is free) but it arrived today in a blue bubble-mailer and miraculously no damage other than some marks on the inside pages of the booklet.

NIS America Haul

Over the past weekend was NIS America’s Black Friday sale which is not particularly amazing by all means, but the three PlayStation 5 games that I picked up each have their own reputation to which they tend to sell out due to NISA’s format. The games I purchased were Monochrome Mobius: Rights and Wrongs Forgotten, which is a Utawarerumono spin-off presented in turn-based RPG format than the mainline tactical RPG design, as well as Ys VIII: Lacrimosa Of DANA & Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, two upgrades from the PS4 versions that I own.

In addition, I also made use of their Deal of the Week offer which was for Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles on the Nintendo Switch. This ‘unofficial NIS Classics Volume 4’ collection consists of two Japan-only games now available in English for the first time (and with English audio for those who like dubs); the 1999 PlayStation game Rhapsody II: Ballad of the Little Princess and 2000 PlayStation 2 game Rhapsody III: Memories of Marl Kingdom. Whilst Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is a tactical RPG, the sequels changed the battle system into a traditional turn-based RPG. This collection is also available on PS5 but I decided its better suited for Switch (especially given the first game is only on Switch) as I didn’t see any notes on why the PS5 version is the better format.

Third Window Films Director’s Company Haul

The final batch of items for this month’s haul is an order that I placed way back in August which was held up as it required all of the items to be available altogether. The hold-up is because they’re all pre-orders from Third Window Films for their new Director’s Company line-up.

The first three films were released across September, October & November. First we have Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1992 film The Guard from Underground (地獄の警備員), followed by Banmei Takahashi’s 1988 film DOOR (ドア) & 1991 film DOOR II: Tokyo Diary (ドア2：東京日記), and Shinji Sōmai’s 1985 film Typhoon Club (台風クラブ). There’s more to come in the next year but it’s neat to see more older Japanese films make their appearances.

Bonus: More Digital PlayStation Classics

And here’s an added bonus. I bought a $50 PSN card to get some more classic PlayStation games from the PSN stores. The ones I went for were Grandia, Jet Moto, Kurushi Final: Mental Blocks, Twisted Metal and Twisted Metal 2 (Twisted Metal World Tour).

Now I’ll recap why I use the USD approach here. If a PS1 game was released on PS3 or Vita, you are entitled to a free download of the PS4/PS5 versions. I buy my classic PS1 games from the US PSN store on PS3 to get the NTSC versions and it’s also cheaper at $5.99 (compared to PS5’s $9.99). Sometime later, Sony did update their EU PAL releases to include US NTSC versions but not every game has this feature. Kurushi Final was never released in the US so it’s PAL 50Hz anyway.

The point is that, from the image you see above, with the exception of Ape Escape, Everybody’s Golf 1, Kurushi, Kurushi Final, Twisted Metal and Twisted Metal 2 (latter two I’ll explain in a bit), every other game I have picked up was bought on PS3 for $5.99, saving myself a lot of funds in return.

I did encounter a problem in relation to Twisted Metal 1 & 2. Ever since the games were added to PS Plus last Summer, the PS3 store broke for them both. This doesn’t affect those who bought the games beforehand, but if you buy them on PS3 post-PS Plus launch, it would accept the purchase & payment but it won’t recognise that you own it, won’t let you download it, and prevents you from buying it on PS5. Essentially you’re robbed of a digital purchase.

The only solution that I saw from reading online was basically request a refund via support. Thankfully I got it sorted and was able to buy them on PS5. In addition, Twisted Metal 2 is no longer available to buy on PS3 and whilst the first game still is I don’t recommend it. Don’t worry about the other games as they are unaffected (as seen with Grandia & Jet Moto).

Unboxing Links

You can view more photos & specs for the titles below:

What’s to Come for the Hauls

December 2023

December I think is going to be a wild card because I have honestly no clue on how large the haul is going to be. I have made use of a Black Friday sale from Sentai but other than that the absence of Rightstuf is felt here. There is of course the Anime Limited & MVM Christmas sales but it does come down to pricing and what titles are on offer.

In the meantime, do expect the traditional Christmas batch as per usual and maybe a few surprises here and there.

  • Basquash! (Blu-ray)
  • CANAAN (Blu-ray)
  • Casino Raiders (Blu-ray)
  • The Fall of Ako Castle (Blu-ray)
  • Girls Beyond the Wasteland (Blu-ray)
  • Gundam Build Fighters Parts 1 & 2 (CE Blu-rays)
  • Initial D Legend Theatrical Collection (Blu-ray)
  • K-On! Ultimate Collection (Blu-ray)
  • Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Season 2 (CE Blu-ray)
  • Mobile Fighter G Gundam Parts 1 & 2 (CE Blu-rays)
  • Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit (Blu-ray)
  • Natsu no Arashi! (Blu-ray)
  • The Qwaser of Stigmata (Blu-ray)
  • She, The Ultimate Weapon (Blu-ray)
  • This Art Club Has a Problem! (Blu-ray)
  • To Love Ru Collection (Blu-ray)
  • Yuyushiki (Blu-ray)

2024

In 2024 there are a few titles pre-ordered and expected to be shipped out in the first few months of the year.

  • Kung Fu Cult Master (Blu-ray)
  • Samurai Wolf I & II (Blu-ray)
  • To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts (CE Blu-ray)
  • When Taekwondo Strikes (Blu-ray)

Other Tidbits

I have more holiday booked in for throughout December which is great as I needed the time off to rest after many months of hard work. That said, 2024 is going to be a different atmosphere because we have some staff members leaving, one department being sold off earlier in the year which meant the friendly environment is a bit torn up and while my manager from last year has returned, they’re not part of my department now due to changeover of roles. While I am optimistic about the next few months it could get worse for my work mentality so we’ll see how it does.

Outside of work, my funds were slightly messy due to how the previous months have been, but I am working through to make sure its back on track for the months ahead.

Anime

Anime Limited’s batch of titles from Sentai Filmworks they revealed during MCM London is officially their Christmas early bird line-up for this year’s sales. It’s disappointing but at least they have them out of the way. For context, those titles are Akame ga Kill!, Flowers of Evil, Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma Season 1, Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor, Kids on the Slope, Parasyte -the maxim-, and Shirobako.

I already picked up Kids on the Slope so I’ll wait for a price-drop in all honesty, but Kaiji is the one that I’m head-scratching on. I do want to own the show, but Anime Limited jumped the gun here for two reasons – they are re-using Sentai’s discs which have a frame-rate problem of being encoded in 1080i30 whilst the main content is actually in 1080i24 outside of the theme songs. It makes sense why it’s like that for the US side due to NTSC 60Hz, but all it does is make the video choppy in a lot of places, and Anime Limited missed the opportunity to amend this. In addition, there is already an English dub in the works (which is not included here) and they are splitting up the two seasons which means we will have to pay twice as much. This is definitely one of Anime Limited’ silliest decisions across the past decade.

Discotek finally revealed their January 2024 batch at the very last second, with Kurokami the Animation, Lovely Complex, Lupin the Third: Sweet Lost Night, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Season 1 and the final Urusei Yatsura TV collection set, as well as two live-action films for Nihon Nights. While I have yet to order any of the Urusei Yatsura TV sets, the rest I might actually order all at once because it’s a solid batch.

I do want to mention that because of Crunchyroll’s pretty awful sales I have been unable to prep for a December batch for my bi-monthly Discotek Media hauls. Even if I made some orders at the start of the month they won’t arrive in time until January due to the holiday season where the retailers and couriers are all occupied. It sucks to be honest, but I would rather delay than rush a haul.

Speaking of Crunchyroll, it seems they might be ditching their multi-language models because I have yet to see any from their 2024 line-up that indicates that and at the same time, they’re bringing back the subtitled only releases. The UK is expected to get a fair few of the 2024 titles, though there are some notable omissions like The Quintessential Quintuplets Movie and Bocchi the Rock, but what we do know at least are Handyman Saitou in Another World, Ningen Fushin, Chillin in My 30s and the second half for BLUELOCK and Spy x Family at least.

Asian Cinema

It’s been a while since I mentioned anything from the Asian Cinema batch but that’s because there hasn’t been much to talk about as this medium tends to be fairly quiet. But with that said, there’s some interesting titles incoming that I want to pick up.

From 88 Films we have some more Hong Kong cinema goodness with Li Han-Hsiang’s 1965 film Beauty of Beauties, which is an odd choice for the distributor as its more Eureka’s type of pick but sure none-the-less, and Corey Yuen’s 2002 film So Close for more female-led action. We also find out that 88 Films was unable to provide a box set for Wellson Chin’s The Inspector Wears Skirts due to licensing restrictions so the second and third films from 1989 & 1990 are incoming but as separate releases.

Also surprising to see is 88 Films entering the Japanese film market with their new Japanarchy line-up which includes Ryū Murakami’s 1992 film Tokyo Decadence, Toshiharu Ikeda’s 1988 film Evil Dead Trap as well as Izo Hashimoto’s 1992 film Evil Dead Trap II: Hideki. I know Third Window found the masters for Evil Dead Trap but missed the acquisition by a few days so they won’t be able to include it with their Director’s Company line-up. It seems what connects all three of these is that one of the US distributors released all three so it could be a similar licensing deal.

Either way it’s an interesting slate, no mention of deluxe collector’s editions which is fine by me. Reminds me that I still need to order both Ivan Lai’s 1991 film The Blue Jean Monster and Wellson Chin’s 1988 film The Inspector Wears Skirts as they’re out pretty soon.

Speaking of Third Window Films, they have revealed their home video releases for Reiki Tsuno’s Mad Cats and Junta Yamaguchi’s River for early 2024, both of which are very recent films which are also neat to see. While the Director’s Company line-up is fairly quiet on what’s to come, a BBFC rating for Shinji Sōmai’s Luminous Woman was spotted not long ago.

Radiance Films are apparently going to be releasing a lot more Asian films throughout 2024 which may disappoint fans of European cinema which I can understand, but there’s no harm getting these out of the way at the very least. Between now and what’s known are Yuzo Kawashima’s 1962 film Elegant Beast (also known as The Graceful Brute), Tai Kato’s 1968 film I, The Executioner, Kōhei Oguri’s 1990 film The Sting of Death, Yasuharu Hasebe’s 1966 film Black Tight Killers, and Tai Kato’s 1966 film By A Man’s Face Shall You Know Him. A lot of older Japanese films which fit the label’s line-up. But yeah as mentioned there’s dozens more but hopefully I can keep up the pace.

Last but not least we have Eureka Entertainment with Lo Wei’s 1974 film Slaughter In San Francisco (also known as Yellow Faced Tiger) and a double-film collection for Yakuza Wolf by directors Ryuichi Takamori & Buichi Saitô from 1972. I have yet to pre-order these due to timing but I’ll get them at some point.

And that’s pretty much it. Also a bonus shout out to Anime Limited for releasing Godzilla Minus One for IMAX in the UK which I have booked my ticket for so I’m looking forward to checking that on the big screen. They claim to not have home video rights but hopefully they do so that we can get the film on 4K Ultra HD as well.

And that concludes this month’s haul. It’s a massive haul thanks to tons of Blu-rays and games but who knows how December will turn out! Expect a complete collection update batch as well going into the new year.

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